


N.I.N.A.

by InterNutter



Series: When Irish Eyes Are Smiling [1]
Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: F/M, Gen, Peter/Iris, Romance, baby robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-19
Updated: 2014-02-19
Packaged: 2018-01-13 01:39:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1208095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InterNutter/pseuds/InterNutter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Iris travelled all the way across the country for one, rare chance. And once she achieved that, she found herself wanting more. Unfortunately, there is the matter of the master's strange, mechanical children to consider...</p>
            </blockquote>





	N.I.N.A.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a mixture of my head-cannons and those wrangled by http://thefinespine.tumblr.com [ATTN: FOLLOW THIS GENIUS] and their baby!bot arts.
> 
> Plus, I'm sort of writing this for them, so... enjoy!

Disclaimer: Steam Powered Giraffe and all recognizable characters from their lore belong to the Bennett twins. I just write crazy fics about robots.

ObInfo: You can not convince me that Iris Tonia is not at least part Irish.

N.I.N.A.  
InterNutter

Did you hear?  
The scion of Walter Manor has gone crazy for a woman! And not even a proper woman. This one is some kind of suffragette who believes women can learn science alongside men! She even holds her own in the Cavulcadium Debates! The nerve!  
Did you hear?  
Servants are leaving Walter Manor in droves. The house is so desperate for employees that they left the very vital four initials off their advertisement for help. Look you! No NINA in their ad copy!  
Iris nodded and smiled and did not speak. It was the lack of those four initials that she pinned her hopes on. It was the lack of those four initials that sent her packing from the slums of New York, practicing her genuinely-American Bronx accent all the way.  
An Irish woman is not worth that much in New York.  
An Irish woman, eldest girl of nine siblings, is only useful as a mother.  
But that was what trains were for. That was what travel was for.  
She needn't be poor-little-paddy-girl Iris when she disembarked in San Diego. She could be anybody she liked, though she doubted she could fully escape being Iris Tighe. She searched the luggage and papers surrounding her for an appropriate name. An American name. A name that would not cause a wealthy gentleman to remember the four initials he forgot to put in a small advertisement that he could afford to print country-wide.  
N.I.N.A.  
No Irish Need Apply.  
A man travelling with his young son were taking turns tipping the paper. The boy's grasp folded an advertisement for some variety of tonic water, forcing the decorative letters to spell out 'Tonia'  
Tonia.  
So Iris Tonia sounded like a joke name. There were plenty of folks around with names just as humorous, who wore them with pride.  
When the train stopped for water, she got out to freshen up, stretch her legs, and carefully alter her papers. Water to smudge her true name out. Napkins to blot the water away. Exposure to the sun and her breath to almost dry it and, with careful attention to detail, a pen and ink to inscribe her new name.  
"Iris Catherine Tonia," she said in carefully Bronx-tainted tones into the mirror. "My name is Iris Catherine Tonia."  
Did you hear?  
The master of Walter Manor is building automatons!  
To impress a frosty suffragette with delusions of her own grandeur!  
Did you hear?  
He regularly makes the manor explode!  
Did you hear?  
Did you hear?  
Lurid tales of unearthly blue light almost straight from the penny dreadfuls.  
Did you hear?  
Extremely gory tales of what happened to some servants, lifted wholesale from the yellow press.  
Did you hear?  
Every bizarre and magnified story of ridiculousness that came with a fellow passenger spotting the Help Wanted copy in her clean, crisp gloves.  
It was amazing that she could doze at all with those stories flying through her head. It was as if every living being capable of speech was determined to scare her away from her one, last chance before she ever got there.  
But she had to take the chance.

Apparently, it was custom for cab-drivers to give their passengers apples in San Diego. They were small things. Almost unnaturally red. And hers smelled bittersweet.  
Cab apples.  
Strange.  
At least she'd had the presence of mind to stow her luggage in a ladies' hostelry before making herself presentable and embarking on this smaller journey for an interview.  
There was no queue.  
Just a card.  
Applicants to follow the arrows.  
Iris did just that. Around to the rear. Up stairs. Through a labyrinth. Up more stairs. Through a hallway filled with electric cables. And finally, finally, towards a room that glowed with blue light and smelled of lightning.

BOOM.

The blue light flared and rent the air with smoke and the staggering form of a man sprinkled with tongues of blue fire. He did not fall until he hit the wall opposite the portal of his spectacular egress.  
She'd seen that man's photograph in the papers. Admittedly, the photographs of him were far more amenable. Combed hair. Clean skin. Shaved face. Neat clothes. Not on fire. Not bruised and bleeding.  
This was her potential employer.  
And for him to be her employer, he had to at least survive to hire her.  
But she was already running to his side. Papers flew from her fingers, forgotten in the rush to whip off her shawl and cloak to smother the flames. Once the fires were done for, she utilized her smelling salts to at least rouse him enough to usher him backwards through his arrowed maze to the kitchens. Where hot, sweet tea was most definitely in order.  
She regained her Bronx patter halfway through bossing him about like a mother hen. Lucky for her that he was dazed and confused for the duration.  
Iris ran to fetch her papers and her gloves. Ran back to ensure that Colonel Peter Walter was still sitting in the kitchen and sipping tea.  
"I didn' know," he said muzzily, "That y' could make tea outta mint..."  
"Mint's got rousin' properties, sir," she managed. "And it's never a good idea to sleep right after a big blow like that."  
Blink. "Y' know sum physic?"  
"Not professionally, no. I got me six brothers and patchin' 'em up's almost automatic. I know my place, I does. Ain't got th' proper knowing of learned doctors."  
"Who are you again?"  
"Iris Ti--" damnit. "Tonia. Iris Tonia. 'M here for th' job."  
Sip. Blink. Rubbing a knot on his head. "...job?"  
She slid across the cut-out print ad, relevant side up. Iris followed it with her altered papers and references. Kept the calm face of a born liar.  
Well. Irish were naturally deceitful, weren't they?  
It came with having to lie just to get a job or feed their families.  
"Ah. That. I forgot about that. Jeeves put it up in lieu of his final notice. Uh. What are your skills besides impromptu medic, Miss Tonia?"  
"I'm a fair cook, moderate seamstress, I can read and write and do figures, even if it does take me time..." _I'm a forger and a fraud and I'm going to hell and I think you'd be kind of cute once you're clean and dressed neatly... Oh dear._ Iris fought a blush. "I'm willing to learn any skill you want me to do and I ain't above getting down and dirty as needs be. Sumps need cleaning, too. I kept an orderly house wherever I went and this place seems to be a bigger challenge, if I may speak plain."  
A smile... and her heart was lost. The man had perfect teeth. "I find plain speaking to be very refreshing when it isn't used as an excuse to be obnoxious."  
"Then I'll try not t' be obnoxious," she said. "Assuming I'm hired."  
"Well, you've kept your head despite my -ah- explosive introduction. You have a valuable working knowledge of applied medicine..." {GRRRROOOOOOWWWWLLL} "I do beg your pardon. I seem to have forgotten about meals since..." He checked his watch. Then the calendar. "What day is it?"  
"Thursday, sir."  
"Since Tuesday. Hum. I was wondering why I was feeling faint."  
Iris sighed a sigh of women throughout time and began to bustle her way through the kitchen. Yes, there were ingredients. The ice box remained cold without ice in the upper compartment, and there was precious little in either it or the pantry. "You'll need a nourishing broth or you'll just throw it up again, sir. Salt for certain. Beef for the blood. Vegetables for vigor." There were two spigots. One for heated water and one for the regular kind. She half-filled a pot with water and, while it heated on the stove (gas, thank goodness) got to chopping ingredients at top speed. "Ain't promising you fancy, sir. Fancy can wait 'till that stomach of yours is used t' the idea of food again." Handful after handful went into the pot. A little salt. A little spice. Ginger for certain, to kill any nausea from going without meals for so long. Fennel for the heart. Not too much. Not too little.  
Iris checked to make sure he wasn't dozing while she busied herself on the stove. "You have to stay awake for at least two hours after such a bang, sir," she said. "And... I need to know my duties here. If I'm hired."  
The master of the manor sniffed appreciatively and uttered a low, almost animalistic growl. "If your cooking tastes anywhere near as good as it smells, you are *so* hired."  
"And my duties, sir?"  
"Oh. Uhm." God preserve her, he even looked adorable scratching his mussed-up hair. "Make sure I eat, of course. I guess... make sure I get to sleep once every twenty-four hours... Uhm. I've been... pre-occupied... lately. And then there's laundry and housekeeping and -uhm- the other stuff."  
He didn't want a housekeeper. He wanted a mother. "And would I be in charge of any other staff?" More desperate souls like herself. Washing up on the shore of the unnatural, where it seemingly didn't matter if Irish applied.  
"Yes. More staff would be a good idea. Doorman. Coachmaster. All those other things."

Iris made certain he had at least two bowls of nourishing broth before she let him show her his... pre-occupation. She tried to ignore how the hall of wires made her feel like she was entering the spider's parlour.  
It took every fibre of her being to not run away when she saw what was in proud Colonel Walter's laboratory.  
Skulls.  
Ribs.  
Hips.  
Femurs.  
All made of metal.  
"They're not done yet, you understand," he said, leading her through the metallic charnel house. "The first two are my great learning experience, naturally. The flaws in one fixed in the other and vice versa. And when they're done... ah... They will be the eighth wonder of the world."  
"Anatomical models?" she risked.  
"Musical automatons," he crowed, throwing his hands wide at the mechanical viscera around him. "Learning, independent, autonomous automatons. Not just machines to run through a set of motions like a music box. Actual musicians."  
"Sounds... ambitious," Iris allowed. She could see copper parts. Steel parts. Bronze and brass parts. Though there were far more copper and steel pieces than any of the others. "Will... I be expected to... tidy up in here?" _Do I have to touch the creepy metal body parts?_  
"No, thanks. I... have my own system. I don't want any of this disturbed."  
Iris stifled a huge sigh of relief. "Is there any particular reason for..." _this horror show,_ "this... this?"  
"Delilah."  
One word. Three syllables. Said that way. By that man. Simply crushed her heart into atoms.  
Words had power. And the name Delilah may as well have killed her.  
And it just got worse from there.  
She was the semi-famous suffragette. A mistress of chemicals. Brilliant. Capable of talking to the wonderful, handsome Colonel Walter as an equal in the field of science. And beautiful beyond belief. Delilah Moreau.  
And these... creatures... were a gift to attract this rare woman's attention.  
Iris kept her thoughts of desperate sabotage to herself.  
She knew her place.

The ice-less ice box kept food fresher for longer. The pantry was enormous, and the budget was unlimited. As for the staff, she interviewed those brave enough to enter Walter Manor, and assigned them tasks according to their skills.  
This was going to be a place for second chances. She had one, just finding employ here. But not another in finding mutual love. Let Colonel Walter find love in the amazing Miss Moreau.  
Let others find the hope they needed here.  
She could give others that which she didn't have herself. It was the Godly way.  
Penance for her sinful thoughts about a man who had no business noticing her.  
She knew her place.  
As did the others she hired. The Boy, a mongoloid who was five years her senior, happy to be helpful and get room and board. The coachman, a woman with a missing arm. The doorman, a presentable fellow with a nice demeanor and an unfortunate disorder of nervous tic's and alarming words.  
A problem Iris solved by making sure he knew that he must never, ever, say the word 'brick'. It quickly supplanted all the other disturbing utterances and only confused any guests.  
Iris quickly found herself in charge of Colonel Walter's burgeoning automative industry, commissioning machines to save labour and liberate the sweating masses and -on occasion- housewives. Walter, himself, had no interest in mass-producing machines, but money had to come from somewhere. Walter Mechanicals began with hiring anyone who knew the difference between left and right. There would have to be a school to teach the rest.  
And in the middle of it all, she had to ensure that Colonel Walter ate his meals, bathed, brushed his teeth, and got to sleep at regular hours.  
She was the only one who dared enter the hall of wires, let alone traverse it to find Walter in his lab. Therefore she had to be the only one to feed him and boss him into looking after himself.  
In the middle of a metallic autopsy, running itself backwards in slow motion.  
Iris delegated whatever she could to those who could handle it. Colonel Walter had to live. She had been hired to care for him. She cared for him in more ways than the obvious. All she could do was pray that she was subtle about it.

There were voices in Colonel Walter's lab. Iris bought in the lunch tray to find that the copper skull was animate and talking. Hooked up to a mysterious blue, glowing orb.  
"Rabbit!" Said the head.  
It had blue eyes.  
"Not rabbit," growled Colonel Walter. "Miss Iris. Say 'miss Iris'."  
"Rabbit," said the head.  
Iris set the tray down on the one dining table and poured coffee. Added sugar. Cream. Handed it without a word to the good Colonel.  
The head's blue eyes tracked the goings-on. Its metal face smiled.  
"It's... alive?" she risked.  
"Not really alive. It's a machine that seems to be alive. Nothing more."  
"Rabbit," said the head.  
Colonel Walter looked to the hidden heavens and sighed. "And all it will say is 'Rabbit'..."  
"Maybe it likes the word," she suggested.  
Smile. "Rabbit."  
"But I *need* to test his vocabulary and object recognition."  
"*You* need to sit down and have your lunch," Iris ordered, pushing him gently away from his workbenches. Sat him down. Forced the knife and fork into his hands.  
The head laughed.  
Iris wheeled on him. "You think you're so clever, Mister Rabbit? All you are is all you say."  
Blink blink blink. "Awesome," said the head.  
She smiled at the befuddled Colonel. "At least I got it to stop saying 'Rabbit'..."

The musical automatons were certainly musical. Colonel Walter had fed their processors with all knowledge of music. Which the copper one - Rabbit - and its steel 'brother' were using to chirp at each other whenever the Colonel wasn't in the lab.  
And it was disturbing the others.  
Both were more-or-less whole, now. Rabbit had all its arms and legs and fine golden details on its copper plates. The steel one was still short - literally. The Colonel kept getting distracted from finishing its legs by heat issues.  
How did she wind up learning about all of this?  
The steel automaton had far too many chimneys in its back. Its chirps were quieter and halting. It also had an oil leak and dribbled black ichor whenever it moved its mouth. As a direct result, it constantly held an old rag to its mouth.  
Rabbit was the chattier of the two. And the more animated. Its chirps and whistles were more... excited, and its arms gestured rapidly and descriptively.  
Tweet twitter warble, noted the steel one.  
Rabbit turned and waved. "Hey, it's Ma! Hi Ma!"  
"That noise you two get up to," she began, not bothering to correct Rabbit on the 'Ma'. Rabbit was already calling the Colonel 'Pappy' and had convinced its steel twin to do the same. "You're talking to each other, am I right?"  
"Yes'm," said the steel one. "Music-talk is faster."  
Iris jotted that down on a blank piece of paper for the Colonel's attention. "You're disturbing the maids with all that bird-chatter. And I have a hard enough time hanging on to staff as it is. Can you keep it down, please?"  
"Yes'm," murmured the steel one.  
"Sure I can get quiet, ma," said Rabbit. "You just watch. Super pianissimo!"  
"Shhh..." cautioned the steel one.  
Iris couldn't wait for Peter to discover and read the note. The Colonel loved it when the automatons did something new. Just watching him smile and wonder over the novel things he never expected was like a slice of heaven.  
As long as she looked and never touched.

This... was the opposite of subtle.  
She had found Delilah Moreau through her master's paperwork. Put on her best clothes to visit. Passed through a gauntlet of housekeeper, friends and neighbours to find out that she was in a hospital.  
Deathly ill.  
Tuberculosis.  
One of her friends handed over a missive that Miss Moreau had written before she left for her last residence.  
Iris went to confirm the truth. Delilah Moreau was pale, and wan, and very clearly dying. She'd willed her research papers to the very Cavulcadium where Colonel Walter met her.  
She had weeks, at most.  
And it took every fibre of Iris' being to bring that missive to Colonel Walter. To sit by while he read it.  
She expected anger. Bargaining. Tears.  
What she got was, "I'll be taking all my meals in my lab, Miss Iris. Please move in a cot. I must step up production."  
"Pappy?" said Rabbit.  
"Sir?" said the freshly-named Spine.  
"You two go wait in the Hall of Wires," he ordered. "Miss Iris will maintain you. I need the elbow space."  
"What's happening?" asked Rabbit.  
"I said 'get out' so GET OUT!"  
Without a thought, Iris grabbed one each of the automatons' hands in hers and lead them both into the hall of wires.  
The agitated warbling started almost instantly.  
Iris rushed them to a little alcove just outside the hall of wires. Stood them in safe corners.  
Rabbit's eyes were leaking oil.  
"Why's Pappy yelling?" Rabbit pleaded. "Feels bad."  
The Spine offered Rabbit his oil rag. "Cry?"  
This was too much, but the last thing the manor needed was two metal babies in adult-sized bodies running around and panicking. She gripped the metal twins' shoulders.  
"Listen," she soothed. "Pappy got some bad news, today. It's not anything you did. It's not your fault. You both have to be brave for a little while. I promise I'll do everything I can to make things better."  
The automatons wrapped their arms around each other. Settled down in a huddle in the alcove. Sitting on the floor.  
No-one would trip over them because nobody came up to the Hall of Wires. They began chirping to each other. Rapid, frightened warbles.  
Iris had to leave them and talk to Colonel Walter.  
He was already up to his elbows in another robot. Brass. Shining and golden. Most of one arm was already together and he worked like a man possessed.  
"I have to hurry. She has to see... She has to know."  
"Sir..."  
"This one... This one will be perfect. He has to make her smile. They've come so far. Even the music-talk would be enough to gain her attentions. If I can make it in time..."  
"*Sir*."  
"Pass me the long twiddly bit."  
Iris put her fingers between her lips and blew a whistle that could melt earwax.  
"You are making your children cry!"  
Twin sets of clanking footsteps. In a hurry.  
"We heard a noise."  
"Big noise."  
"Pappy okay?"  
"Pappy better?" Rabbit was vibrating. Shivering. "Please be better?"  
Spine wrapped one arm around Rabbit's copper shoulders. Shared his oil rag between Rabbit's leaking face and his own. "Not like yell," he said.  
Neither automaton had set foot back inside the lab.  
Colonel Walter stared in confusion at Iris, then at the two automatons on the other side of the portal where a door once hung.  
"My... children?"  
"They call you 'Pappy'," said Iris. "You've taught them everything they know. You've raised them."  
"But... they're things. They only think they're alive."  
"And that makes them less worthy of care?"  
She could see the light dawning behind his blue eyes. The sudden realisation that he'd had twins. Then, sanity retreated and he turned back to his bench. "I have to finish this. I have to! There's no time. No time!"

Iris found the automatons a space adjacent to the Hall of Wires. It was a storage room for the copious amounts of oil the machines went through. She sat each of them on a barrel and made up a story on the spot.  
About a princess, and a prince who wanted to save her.  
About the ways he tried.  
And the wrong ways he was doing that.  
Of course, her story had a happy ending. The Princess got rescued and they lived happily ever after. At least their chirping was more cheerful. Iris made sure they had water before she got back to Colonel Walter.  
But he was very clearly not listening.  
"Lurning wrench." He held out a hand for it.  
Iris snatched it off his table and held it behind her. "What exactly do you think you're doing?"  
He looked up at her from the deepest pits of madness. "I must finish it for her. Let her know that she's... loved..."  
Iris doubted anyone would know that in the last, feverish and delirious depths of Tuberculosis. But then, this was a man in the middle of a losing battle with grief. Denying the possibility of his heart's ruin by hurling himself headlong into the one project he could handle.  
What would she do if she knew her dear Peter was fatally suffering?  
Easy - everything in her power.  
...and... he *was* suffering...  
"You must explain it to the twins," she said. "I'll help you, but your boys are troubled by this change. They need you too."  
"The... twins..."  
"Rabbit and The Spine? Your metal boys?" She gently pried him away from his work and lead him towards the storage closet. They were both chirping, warbling and twittering to each other in minor keys. "They're worried and afraid."  
"How can you tell?"  
"Listen."  
He did. A stunned expression growing on his perfectly-sculpted features. When he opened the door, the automatons were no longer sitting opposite each other, but tangled together in a trembling embrace. Each seeking comfort from the other.  
Rabbit radiated anxiety from every seam. The Spine also radiated heat.  
Iris worried she may have made a critical error in placing them next to so much oil.  
Their chirping music-talk stopped. Two metal heads turned to look up at their 'Pappy'. Both faces were streaked with oily tears.  
"Not know what Self did bad," said The Spine, halfway through his ever-present rag.  
"Promise never bad again," said Rabbit.  
It was telling that the two of them had regressed to broken English.  
"Want help Pappy," they said together.  
"If... Pappy want us," said The Spine.  
"...please want us?" squeaked Rabbit.  
Colonel Walter murmured, "Of course I want you. You're both essential to the plan."  
"Even leakin'?" asked Rabbit.  
"Even leaking."  
The four of them trooped back to the lab and the latest obsession on the construction bench. Colonel Walter put the plans up on a wall where they could all see and directed the twins to the parts that could not -even remotely- come out wrong. Iris stayed by as long as she could to pass tools or parts.  
And be constantly amazed that she knew so much about the making of robots. She had somehow absorbed it from Colonel Walter's atmosphere, like a fish breathed water. The only time she left his side was to ensure he had food and that the automatons had oil and water. Hurried sandwiches and coffee fuelled herself and the good Colonel into the wee small hours.  
The twins had fallen into 'sleep mode' or 'stasis', huddled together under one of the benches. Iris scooped up their half-done work and found herself shocked that The Spine was not a perpetual radiator.  
He had cooled significantly over the evening and, now that she felt his metal skin, he was just a shade warmer than the human skin.  
Interesting.  
She retrieved more coffee and sandwiches for poor dear Peter, and sat on the so-far empty cot. Just to rest her eyes a little.

She woke to an armful of drool, the snores of poor dear Peter, and the faint, plaintive calls of the Boy. Peter's coat was draped over her.  
She draped it straight back over him and bought out the plates and the empty coffee caraffe.  
"Sorry, Bobby," she yawned as she made her way to the poor man. "Colonel Walter needed assistance with his latest project. What's the matter?"  
It was a crowd of people from the varied Walter interests seeking advice on the latest string of troubles. Most of them hinged on completely ridiculous concerns regarding colour and gender and how close various members of one classification were to the other.  
Iris wanted to scream at them. There was a man upstairs who could very plausibly destroy himself for a woman who -she knew from hushed and private investigation- already had a wife to mourn her inevitable passing. There were two little boys in the bodies of grown, metal men, who were scared that their Pappy didn't want them any more. There was an entire household of social misfits whose varied problems tended to synergise - and of course she was the only one to unravel it all.  
The concerns about skin tone and gender were simply ludicrous in comparison.  
She solved it ruthlessly by subdividing everything according to the biggest objections and proposed charging tours for anyone still convinced that the assorted Walter Workings remained, somehow, scandalous.  
Then it was a quick trip to the kitchen for more sandwiches and coffee. Both horribly and hastily put together.

When the news came of the impossibly wonderful Delilah Moreau's demise, Iris held her breath while she handed it over.  
Peter stared at the page in stunned confusion. The third automaton still inactive and legless on its slab. The other two peered over his shoulder.  
Chirp twitter warble?  
Cheep cheep warble twitter. Point to the framed portrait. The words, "Other Mommy."  
Poor dear Peter was trembling. "...no..." The telegram became a tight ball in his fingers. He threw it across the room. "NO! She *will* see them! They *will* be finished! THEY *WILL* BE WONDROUS!"  
Confused chirping as poor devastated Peter redoubled his efforts with the third machine man.  
Finally, the words from Rabbit. "Ma? What is 'died'?"  
Not now.  
Not that.  
Not with poor Peter falling ever faster into new depths of mad grief.  
She couldn't give them the words they needed.  
Not with Peter in the same room, valiantly attempting to deny the truth.  
"It's... very bad news," she managed. Her own tears fell. Thick, fat ones. Not for Delilah, though those would come in time, but for poor darling Peter. Who had love in abundance in the very same room but never saw it. Who was literally destroying himself for a love he could never win.  
"I'm sorry," she wailed. "I can't st--*" Her voice and her spirit failed her. She fled in hysterics all the way to the kitchens, where she fell into the potato sacks and howled like an infant.  
Just thinking about how selfish that had just been only made it worse.  
She couldn't help herself.

BOOM!  
Her feet flew without any acknowledgement from her brain. That was the unmistakable sound of scientific disaster from poor Peter's lab.  
She didn't know she had a potato sack clinging to her until she made it ready to beat out any blue flames.  
Iris arrived just as the blue pyrotechnics faded and Peter propped Rabbit into a standing position. It was too dark. All she could see were three blue cores and six pairs of glowing blue eyes.  
Wait.  
Two automatons were chirping, but the other 'voice' was unfamiliar to her. Then three mechanical voices warbled over each other.  
Iris found Peter by feel and dragged him into the light.  
"...that was quite a bang," he managed.  
"There's three of them, now," she said.  
"Two and a half," corrected Rabbit.  
"Brother no legs," said The Spine, carrying the third automaton in his steel arms.  
"Hug," said the brass one. He was impossibly elongated, ridiculously cheerful, and whimsical wires curled around his open-topped head. He chirped and pointed out poor Peter. "Pappy?"  
"Pappy," confirmed The Spine.  
"Pappy," nodded Rabbit.  
Chirp tweet, pointing at her. "Ma?"  
"Miss Iris," said The Spine.  
"Ma," argued Rabbit.  
"Miss Iris."  
"Ma!"  
Warble twitter chirp tweet...  
Iris decided to put a stop to it if it came down to grappling. The automatons seemed content to argue verbally, and poor Peter had another concussion. She had to deal with it all, one disaster at a time.

The biggest problem for going to church was the Automatons. They were terrified of climbing down stairs. And they were so very unfamiliar with clothing. Iris had done her best, but there was no such thing as a pattern for pants that would stay on Rabbit's impossible copper frame. She'd solved it in the end with too many belts and a pair of black braces, just in case. They would be covered by the coat, anyway.  
The unnamed third robot wore his own clothes roughly. He was just... far too thin and too long to fit into normal clothes. And as for cramming a hat on top of that massive smokestack... Iris just gave up. At least he had legs to walk with.  
The automatons wore black. The Spine's outfit had to be adjusted for his smokestacks. None wore shoes, but their metal feet had a coat of paint for the occasion.  
Poor Peter looked like he was next in line for the choir invisible.  
Iris had done her best, but no matter how fed and bathed and shaved and combed he was, he was still wracked with grief and sleeplessness.  
At least they were presentable for church.  
She told the boys in the coach trip up; no talking, no questions, no chirping. Just stay quiet and still and sit with herself and Pappy, out of respect for the grieving.  
She never knew how much they understood.  
It must have been very strange for the boys. Seeing the woman in the box, all still and cold. Seeing all the strangers in black. All crying and sad.  
She sat them between herself and poor Peter and waited for disaster to come in the form of a curious automaton forgetting the important rules and blurting out something that the others would view as horrid.  
For all their learning... for all their appearances... the boys were still barely four months old.  
But it was not the boys who made a commotion.  
When it was poor dear Peter's turn to stand and speak, he barely got past, "I, too, loved Delilah," when another man in the congregation stood.  
He wore green velvet and many stains were on the once-white shirt underneath, and had the same sleepless, deprived demeanour as poor Peter. "LIES," he roared. "You will not claim her! Not even now!"  
The thing he pulled from his stained coat looked like a gun.  
The automatons shrieked and scrambled to get between the weapon and their Pappy. Three, the youngest, had spring-loaded legs and literally bounced into the way.  
"NO HURT PAPPY!"  
The greenish-looking man fired.  
Hit poor little Three square in the chest.  
Screaming and chaos. People trying to flee. People trying to reach the fallen automaton. The Spine neatly crossing the distance between Iris and the man in green and announcing in his devastating bass, "Hurting *BAD*!" before crushing the gun's muzzle in his steel fingers.  
Rabbit was cradling Three and howling fit to break the stained-glass windows.  
Poor Peter was standing in mute befuddlement. Shock made him even paler.  
People were screaming.  
And Iris was the only one with the wits to handle so many crises at once.  
She stood on her former seat. Barked orders in the Tones of Authority. "Spine! Hold that man! Rabbit! Put Three down. Usher the people to the meadow. NOW! Peter! See to Three! Padre! Notify the constabulary!"  
The Tones of Authority worked. She joined Rabbit in ushering the panicked press of people outdoors. Only once they were gone did she rush to Three's side and see what had happened to the poor brass innocent.  
The blue eyes still glowed. The mechanical limbs moved. His black shirt lay wide open. As did his chest.  
Which no longer contained the familiar blue orb of a blue matter power core. Nor gears. Nor wires. There was still a boiler, but in the space where a core should have been...  
It hurt to look at it, directly. A swirling vortex that went through space and time and, floating apparently happily in the middle of it...  
A Dachshund bun... and a large, Japanese, ornamental goldfish.  
The fish was undeniably alive, despite swimming in thin air.  
"Impossible," whispered Peter. "It's so impossible... I don't have the slightest idea how to fix this."  
Iris knelt to take the brass automaton's hand. "How do you feel, Three?"  
Chirp chirp tweet... He looked into his own chest and gently tickled the fish. "Feels... funny. Feels... want. Empty-tickle. Here..." He pointed to the vortex. Roughly where a human's stomach should have been.  
She got Rabbit to help Three upright and ran a simple co-ordination test. Then an elocution test. "It would seem," she announced, "That there is nothing *to* fix." She carefully closed Three's chest plates.  
The automaton giggled. "Tickles."  
When the police finally arrived to take Thadeus Becile into custody, all three automatons were chirping excitedly amongst themselves about Three's accidental augmentation. The Spine had taken to carrying Becile around like a giant teddy-bear and seemed almost upset to surrender him to the shackles of the law.  
Poor Peter sat, numb, just underneath the departed Delilah's casket.  
He remained numb all through the burial. Iris had to take the automatons for a walk, lest they ask why the sleeping lady was going into the ground once too often.  
He remained numb all the ride home, with the automatons filling the air with their birdsong conversations.  
He ate like a machine and didn't seem to notice Three eating without harm right next to him. The twins watched Three eat with barely concealed jealousy and, of course, excited chirping.  
He moved like a machine. All the way to going to his bed for a change.  
Iris let the automatons stay on the ground floor and watch the fireplace, tonight. And she was too tired to climb the stairs once, let alone three times. She fell asleep in the wing chair to the soft, lazy twitterings of the three metal boys.

Poor Peter kept coming back to the lab and staring at nothing. Three of the originally proposed mechanical quartet were done. There was no point in building the fourth. When he was spurred to action, he would pick up Delilah's portrait and stare at it for an impossibly long time before he put it back down again.  
Iris let him.  
He was clearly working through something and talk was not in his priorities. She kept him on a schedule and reminded him to bathe and kept his clothes clean. But beyond that... she left him to work through whatever was on his mind.  
And she cared for the automatons. Kept them out of mischief the only way she knew how - by giving them something to do.  
When they weren't receiving tutorship from various hungry musicians, they were learning whatever hand-skills she could teach. How to read and write - which Peter had never been interested in. How to read music.  
But it was the sewing that bought the miracles.  
She had each of them working on cross-stiching. Rabbit could not contain himself long enough for the task, so she let him long-stitch. The Spine, all unknowing, blocked the door as he concentrated on drawing needle and thread through the fabric.  
Peter found them and stumbled past The Spine. Then did a double take so he could press both palms to the steel automatons' metal skin.  
"No heat," he croaked.  
"How's that?" said Iris.  
Peter spent a minute clearing his throat. "The Spine... He's-- You fixed his overheating issues. *How*?"  
"I gave him something distracting to do. Poor boy was so worked up about pleasing you he got into a tizzy that only made things worse."  
Peter laughed. It wasn't entirely a happy laugh. It was the sort of laugh that teetered on the brink of madness. He rushed to her and helped her stand. "You," he announced breathlessly, "are a gold... plated... *GENIUS*!"  
And then he caught her up in his arms and kissed her square on the lips.  
She didn't fight. Didn't think.  
Just allowed her arms to caress him back where here he crushed her. Returned the affection that had hurt her heart so badly over these months gone. Let herself become so deeply involved in the kiss that the rest of the world vanished.  
She could have lived in that kiss.  
She would have happily died in it, and not had to face the consequences.

Peter pulled apart when he felt her hand on his... rump. That hand quickly departed as he ripped her face away from his and stared, breathless at her face.  
Those eyes.  
He knew the expression in her eyes by the heartbreak he was just now getting past. By the howling gulf that had occupied his chest at the mere thought of the absence of Delilah Moreau.  
And at the sudden, surprising pain he experienced while forcing his arms to let her go.  
Blood filled his face.  
Air eluded him.  
And he was very suddenly aware that they were both surrounded by overtly curious automatons. Chittering away in their musical language.  
"Do forgive me," he panted. "I don't... quite know... what came over me."  
Miss Iris' bosom was heaving. Overspilling the corset underneath her plain, blue dress with every gasp. "Do forgive... my impertinence," she breathed. "I should... always... remember my place..."  
It pained him to say, "If you desire... to take your leave... I completely understand."  
The look in her eyes screamed that it hurt her as much to say, "If you wish... my resignation... just say the word."  
A literally breathless silence filled the room. Or it would have, were it not for the cacophonous birdsong, interspersed with the gentle clink and clank of automatons trying to touch lips they did not possess.  
Neither of them had the power of speech.  
The spell was broken by the clock chimes.  
Time for the automatons' music lessons.  
Peter fled to his room and sat, dumbfounded. Staring at nothing that happened to be in the vague direction of the master bedroom's window.

She got them down to the music room without any variety of upset. Though she was certain her face was vermillion. Iris shooed the automatons inside, where Mr Ignatious Reed waited for them.  
Rabbit, for a change, fetched up as last to go into the room. "Ma?" he asked. "What is the lip-lip thing you and Pappy did?"  
It was a miracle her head didn't catch alight.  
"I need to take a walk in the garden," she announced, and ignominiously fled the scene.

To Be Continued!


End file.
